Not this year, says the U.S. Postal Service. As far as it's concerned, about 250,000 pieces of Christmas mail from around the country will flow through Bethlehem to be blessed with the coveted cancellation stamp.

But that's not what customers who visit Bethlehem's post offices are hearing. They enter with their Christmas cards and dreams of a Christmas cancellation stamp. But they leave knowing a plain, old Lehigh Valley postmark will be there instead.

The Christmas City postmark is no more, they're told, another victim of email and the Grinch-like economy.

If the stamp is gone, it's a hefty lump of coal for some. Every year, Americans route mail through any number of towns with Christmas-like names — Nazareth; Bethlehem, Ind.; and Advent, W. Va., to name a few. Bethlehem's stamp has been around since 1937 and offers either a Moravian star or the Three Wise Men.

"Tradition is important to me," said Chris Merrigan of Bethlehem, one of the customers saddened to hear of the stamp's alleged death. "The post office has to make a lot of difficult decisions, even if we don't like the decisions they make."

Calls to Bethlehem Postmaster Joe Manzo were directed to Ray V. Daiutolo Sr., a spokesman for the postal service.

Daiutolo said rumors of the stamp's demise are exaggerated. In fact, the main Bethlehem branch on Wood Street is still offering the Christmas City stamp, just as it has for the past 75 years, he said.

About 1 p.m. Wednesday, a line of customers snaked out the door at the Wood Street post office. When they reached the front of the line, they were greeted by a cardboard sign someone had propped next to the cash registers.

On it, written in black ink, was a message that the branch would not be "hand stamping" envelopes. The word "not" was underlined.

Madeline Forshey saw the sign and felt crushed. The Allentown resident lived in Bethlehem in the 1980s. After she moved, she kept mailing her Christmas cards from Bethlehem just to get the Christmas City cancellation. On Wednesday, she had 18 to mail.

"It's just a shock to see," she said.

The clerk agreed. It wasn't their decision, the clerk told her. Someone on high had determined it was too pricey to pay someone to hand stamp envelopes.

The clerk recommended Forshey speak with her supervisor. A man emerged from a back room and listened to her.

"He was very nice," she said.

He apologized to Forshey. He said the decision to discontinue the stamp hadn't come from the local office. He took Forshey's envelopes and offered to personally stamp each of them with the Christmas City stamp.

Then, he recommended that she contact a local newspaper. Forshey phoned The Morning Call.

She wasn't the first. Even though she doesn't celebrate Christmas, My Lien Nguyen, a 19-year Bethlehem resident, mails cards to friends as far away as Europe, just for the Christmas City stamp.

"It's very valuable," she said.

Every year, she brings about a dozen cards to the Wood Street post office and drops them into a box in the front set aside for cards that are supposed to get the special stamp.

Last week, Nguyen brought in her cards. A clerk told her the post office would no longer be using the Christmas City cancellations. There's no longer enough staff to do the stamping, she was told.

The looks on several of the customers' faces weren't very festive, Nguyen said. She said she'd volunteer to do the stamping.

Daiutolo isn't sure what happened. Offering the cancellation stamp is at the discretion of the local postmaster, and he'd received assurances earlier in the year that Bethlehem was on board in 2012. Every year, the post office starts offering the Christmas stamp at all three Bethlehem branches and eventually concentrates everything on the main office on Wood Street.

"There should be no signs at that location," he said. "That is where the requests are being directed."

Daiutolo said it's possible the Wood Street post office had changed its mind. Most of the letters that get the stamp are shipped to Bethlehem from out of town. But Manzo assured him the office was still using the stamp.

Next year, however, might be a different story, he said. The post office re-evaluates its position on the stamp every year.